a cichlid fell into my lap...

Question
The Backstory:
So I just bought a tank from my land lady. The tank itself measures 20" wide x 19" tall x 10" deep, I believe that is a 30 gallon tank...? In this tank is some sort of freshwater Cichlid, my land lady is unsure of the species as she obtained it due to a previous tenant leaving it behind. He currently is only about 3.5". The tank currently has cheesy plastic plants that I intend to swap quite promptly with plenty of real rocks, sand and live plants.

The Questions:
1. What species of fish would be best to house with this fish? Anything other than Plecos?
2. Can African and New World Cichlids be housed in the same tank?
3. Would crustaceans be safe with Cichlids? (i.e. snails, clams, ghost shrimp, Hammer lobster)
4. Rough estimation of how many fish this tank could hold?  

Answer
Hi Matthew,
  1. The tankmates depend a lot on which kind of cichlid your resident fish is.  If you email me a picture to the address below, I may be able to tell you.

  2.  It is generally not a good idea to mix African and New World cichlids. It sometimes works, but I do not recommend it.

  3.  Most crustaceans will be eaten by most cichlids. They will enjoy this, but you likely will not.

  4. The number of fish depends almost entirely on the amount of structure (wood, rock, plants) in the tank.  The more structure, the more hiding places and the more fish than can safely live in the tank.  For example, with no structure, that is a tank for one fish.   With a LOT of structure, you might have a dozen or more fish in there. BTW, even cheesy plastic plants are good for providing structure.  Once algae grows on them, as it should, they can actually look pretty good.  If you put the plastic ones in the background, you can put real ones up front.  Keep in mind that cichlids will strongly tend to uproot/eat/destroy live plants.
They do the same to plastic plants; it just takes longer.

-- Ron
  rcoleman@cichlidresearch.com
  Cichlid Research Home Page <http://cichlidresearch.com>